Report on the 2005 Creation Mega Conference, Part Three

Frankly, I think it should be a requirement of every science PhD program in the country that students attend a conference such as this. Let them see first-hand the ingorance, the anti-intellectualism, the anti-science propaganda, the anti-anything that doesn't conform to their idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bible attitude. Maybe then people on my side of this would wake up, and stop acting like it's a waste of time to pay attention to these folks.

— Jason Rosenhouse

I fled the classroom, emerged into the humid Lynchburg weather, and went searching for a place to eat lunch. I eventually settled for a nearby Mexican restaurant. Ordered a fajita burrito. It was really, really, good. Felt better.

It's interesting you bring up the issue of what you are doing in creationist territory in th first place, and I accept your reasons on face value, but might I suggest there is one more that you did not mention...

I too have spent a fair bit of time, online mostly, discussing and debating with creationists, fundamentalists, and pseudoscientists of all stripes. As you say, it can be fun to argue about such things from time to time.

But at one point I sat back and thought more deeply about my motivations for engaging in these debates. I found that, if I was being honest, it was because it made me feel superior knowing that I was right and that all these idiots are completely wrong.

Now, before all you creationists and IDists leap in and say "Aha! Told you those evolutionists were all arrogant bastards!", I've got news for you.... you do it too. Oh, you pretend it's solely your humble duty in the glorification of God, but that's not the whole truth, is it?

(It's most obvious when you get those "witty" one-line zingers that both sides are more than happy fire out.)

It's part of human nature, people want/need to be validated, be it be their spouse, their peers, or simply by like-minded people. It may be obvious to you, but it was a bit of an eye-opener to me when I realised how selfish some of my motivations were in engaging in the debates.

Anyway, enough navel-gazing for one thread. On with the show!

I sat through an hour of a creationist panel discussion on cable access TV this morning that included Bill Dembski.

To be charitable, there were a couple of interesting points made, including one panelist's opinion is that YEC is on the way out - being replaced by a more "sophisticated" presentation of creation (I guess he meant ID).

(They also complained that if the conference had been about "How to Pray for your Pet", they would have had a lot bigger attendance!)

He even singled out AiG (without naming them) as doing a huge disservice to the creationist movement because they villify any Christian who is not a young-earther.

But anyway, I sometimes wonder where these guys leave their brains in the morning. They got on to a discussion about abiogenesis - specifically attacking the biological sciences because they haven't even come close to showing how life could have come from non-life (or a "rock became a walking rock" as their chief-sloganeer put it). Therefore it obvious that naturalistic life-from-non-life must be impossible.

Duh! These guys want both sides of the argument. What do you think will be the first thing out of their mouths if we ever create new life...? "See! All that proves is you need a creator to create life!"

Partly I feel morally obligated to do it.

I'm glad you evolved that way, rather than evolving only to survive.

I am open to the suggestion that I have misunderstood Silvestru in some way, because the argument as I currently understand it is just too dumb. These eggs may date to the same geological era, but they surely were not literally buried during the same few days. And it's not as if the globe was pock-marked with droves of dinosaur eggs. It was not at all clear why several local "catastrophes" could not explain the data Silvestru was attributing to a global event.

Wow, awesome refutation.

Actually, the hypocrisy is amusing. Jason whines when creationists supposedly speculate, but then he turns around writes this as if he knows that a specific epoch of the Mesozoic suddenly experienced several local floods---since rapid burial is the only way to preserve eggs.

I'm not kidding.

Then creationists wonder why we don't take them seriously.

I've been staring at my screen for about five minutes now trying to decide if its worth trying to correct everything that's wrong with that paragraph. I think I'll follow my mathematical instincts and leave it as an exercise for the reader.

That's rich. More glib smugness from the intellectually-anointed Jason.

The only 'refutation' Jason makes is linking to Talk.Origins, the savior of cut-and-paste laymen.

You want refutations? Give a creationist argument, and I'm sure we can find you a refutation of it, if you aren't able to yourself.

By the way, do you have any training in biology?

But please allow some time for the refutation to appear. Sábado Gigante is on.

rapid burial is the only way to preserve eggs.

The only 'refutation' Jason makes is linking to Talk.Origins, the savior of cut-and-paste laymen.

—

Excellent report, but I noticed a few typos.

challeneged me
which is mased on natural laws.

I've listened to some of the MP3s of the talks, its very sad the poor logic of these kinds of fundamentalists / evangelicals. I would recommend faith-affirming and science-filled books like Perspectives on an Evolving Creation edited by geologist Keith Miller or Finding Peace with Science by biologist Darrel Falk to all these folks.

As Protestant Christian Mark Noll wrote in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, the main problem seems to be there isn't one.

Phil P

Thanks for the report Jason, it's really appreciated. Your masochistic foray is ironically Christ-like of you - you suffer so we don't have to, like those bloggers from NewsHounds.us who watch Fox News all day long.

Hence, a PhD candidate isn't going to have any scientific advancement achieved by engaging with YECs. It's a waste of time; you can't fight fear with facts and logic. You're dealing with demogogues here: Ham, Sarfati, and the rest all play to these Christians' fears of losing their faith, which is everything to these people.

The reason for differentiating between science and natural laws is to facilitate the theft of credibility that science has acquired though it's systematic approach to natural laws. And so it would seem that these people have no regard for natural laws or their own.

You know Jason. The image I have you sitting in the audience forcing yourself to watch creatobabbler after creatobabbler reminds of a scene in "Sleeper"

Thats the scene where they are showing Woody Allen footage of Howard Cosell. Afterwards Woody is told that the current belief is that prisoners were forced to watch tapes of "that man" for hours on end as form of a torture.

Woody Allen agreed.

I don't know how you put up with such torture.

KR, In an earlier post you mentioned that Humphreys proposes that the half-lives of radiogenic materials like U decreased by many orders of magnitude during the flood. THe flood lasted about one year. This vast decrease in half-life explains why so little helium is found in the rocks examined by Humphreys, correct?

And Humphreys explains the flood waters protected Noah from the radiation.

But such a decrease in half-life would mean that the Earth's heat flow increased by a similar amount.

Can you explain with a heat flow ~70Mwm-2, that's 70Megawatts per square meter why the oceans weren't a boiling cauldron, much less vaporized?

Is that specific enough a refutation for you?

Hint: Your preacher can't help you.

I predict a resounding silence from KR on any specific objection.

And I predict a glib avoidance of ANYTHING that has to do with the talk.origins site; there's far too much damaging evidence there for him to attempt deal with (there's only so much cognitive dissonance that even a creationist can deal with).

Partly I feel morally obligated to do it. I'm glad you evolved that way, rather than evolving only to survive.

The only 'refutation' Jason makes is linking to Talk.Origins, the savior of cut-and-paste laymen.

Market for confirmation>>market for information.

Or, is it >>>>?

In my opinion, while you're doing the rest of us a great favor, what you're doing is not good for you; get away from that conference.

Yes, but the problem is that too many scientists, science students, and other rational people dismiss creationists as a minor, harmless bunch of fringe nutters. They aren't. They're part of a well-financed, well-connected political and ideological movement with a plan for the future of the country, and they have a LOT of grass-roots support from people who don't know any better than to believe what they say about science.

— Albion

If it does nothing more than show some of these young scientists how vital it is that scientists engage in public outreach on a regular basis, it'll be worth it.

— Albion

Dear Jason,

I attended the Mega Creation conference too. My experience was similar and different. I interacted with lots of very nice people who have a lot in common with me. They pay taxes and too much for gas like me, they have kids who sometimes misbehave like me and they are trying to grapple with the meaning of life like me, even if they have a completely different way of going about it. My largest problem is the spouting of inaccurate science by these people just because so-and-so at the some YEC conference said so. I know the vast majority of the folks at a conference like this are not scientifically trained, but I met a few people who are and they sincerely want to know how the world works, even if they have a rather small trough of options for how it works.

All in all, I think it was a useful venture for me, even if I got thoroughly tired of being called a "compromiser." Yes, I was flummoxed, angered and even gobsmacked at some of the bad science I heard, but I view these folks with a little more sympathy than you do. My angst is reserved for the professional scientists who lead them this way and ought to know better.

That's what I think.

MB

"From the time I've been old enough to think about these things, religion has always struck me as pretty silly. And fundamentalist religion of the sort being preached at this conference has seemed downright delusional. Yet I am also aware that most people do not agree with this view (well, not the first part anyway). A commenter to one of my previous entries suggested that perhaps I am searching for something. Indeed I am. I am trying to understand why things that seem obvious to most people (that there is a God, for example), seem obviously wrong to me. Over the years I've tried praying, reading the Bible, studying theology, talking to believers, attending religious services, and reading more books and articles than I can list attempting to prove that God exists. My hostility towards religion has only grown as a result. But most people have come to a different conclusion. So I keep searching. And I keep thinking that one day it will suddenly become clear to me what it is that people find appealing or plausible about the theistic view of the world."

Me, too.

I am trying to understand why things that seem obvious to most people (that there is a God, for example), seem obviously wrong to me. Over the years I've tried praying, reading the Bible, studying theology, talking to believers, attending religious services, and reading more books and articles than I can list attempting to prove that God exists.

And I keep thinking that one day it will suddenly become clear to me what it is that people find appealing or plausible about the theistic view of the world.

Oops. Somewhere along the line I seem to have reified Sartre's talk of suicide as an existentialist statement of will into his actually committing suicide, but he didn't.

Like Jason, I too was thinking about what is so important about religion that it makes people cling to it. Perhaps it's the childhood. When you are a child, you live (or you should live) without much worries. Your parents give everything you need to you. They protect you from harm, they even grant you wishes that you are unable to fulfill by yourself.

Then you grow up.

Suddenly you are in a world that, by large, doesn't care about your existence. You have to work to make your wishes come true.

So, is it a coincidence that people tend to view God as a heavenly father? Someone who does the same things for adults as adults do for kids? Someone who provides the good things and protects from bad?

If this view is true, then it explains much about the evolution-hating. Because what evolution says could be basically boiled down to this:

"Noone will help you. To be one of the fittest, you have to work for it. It won't come for free."

It's eminently possible that this view is incorrect, but that is really not important here - the important thing is whether it LOOKS like a correct interpretation, since that's what average person cares about.

On the basis of egg burial, one major point is missed it seems in these arguments, and that sequential layers of fossils and fossils buried in clastic sediments in a single series. In the case of eggs, there are sites in Mongolia and Argentina dating into the Late Cretaceous where in the same slope, one right above the other, eggs and nests and nests of them are found, some with bones and entire animals located around them. Sites such as Liaoning in China, Auca Mahuevo in Argentina, and Ukhaa Tolgod in Mongolia, show sections of fossils preserved in non-flood sediments, but rather volcanoclastics, in this case ashes that do not occur in submarine environments. The layers of fossils right atop another don't stop there, but they don't seem to garner much attention in the debate against a global flood. Regions such as the US midwest Western Interior Seaway show frequent advances and recessions of a great seaway, showing marine fossils on top of terrestrial fossils atop marine fossils.... I've used the successive layers of fossils in arguments before, it usually makes them stop and think....

Actually, the hypocrisy is amusing.

May I ask what "TS" stands for, does it have anything to do with T.S Eliot? I want to know because, as far as I am concerned you have stolen my initals.

Let me get this straight; the flood, that global megacatastrophe, carver of canyons, raiser of mountains, was able to preserve a fragile egg.

This flood was amazing - it was simultaneously powerful enough to re-shape the world and not destroy delicate objects. Quite remarkable. Of course, the flood was able to do this, because in fundie land, it had to do this.

I want to know because, as far as I am concerned you have stolen my initals.

"Noone will help you. To be one of the fittest, you have to work for it. It won't come for free."

Actually, you need to do more than "get laid". That act of "getting laid" needs to produce viable offspring, and those viable offspring must be capable of surviving to sexual maturity and reproducing at at least the average rate of the rest of the population.

t.s. -

"Easy answers, validation of their egotism, and a basis for rejecting the belief that they will cease to exist in a few years."

Of course, this would not apply to religious beliefs that emphasize the opposite of these views, as many do, including many forms of Christianity and Judaism, as well as almost any form of Buddhism (list not intended to be exhaustive).

"The latter is quite explicable in terms of evolution. Like other evolved critters, we are built to prolong our existence, increasing the chances that the genes that built the phenotype (us) will be propagated."

Humans have evolved a relatively long potential life span, even relative to our large size. However, natural selection will increase the frequency of alleles in a population when they reproduce faster than other alleles, regardless of the lifespan of an individual organism. Male humans have historically tended to reproduce throughout life, so longevity may well be associated with reproductive "advantage" in many human populations. However, short life span and rapid reproduction at a young age is a more common evolutionary adaptation, in terms of the overall biomass.

"An accurate model of our future includes our inevitable cessation, but the knowledge of an inevitability cannot aid in overcoming it; in fact, it tends to bring the inevitable closer, because our avoiding danger is largely based on the illusion that we can prolong it indefinitely (notice how people say things like "You're not going to die", "he escaped death", "smoking will kill you", etc., when the process of living kills you)."

Smoking may cause you to die earlier from a disease that you would not have contracted, had you not been a smoker. Smoking, thus, may kill you, and although one could superficially argue than "anything may kill you", the probability that smoking will do so is non-trivial. The fact that something else will kill you eventually doesn't change this. The concept that people can escape death (temporarily, but for a non-trivial period of time) is central to modern medical science. Of course, I'm taking the scientific view on these issues.

"No one way of resolving this is more rational than another."

This would seem to be a change from earlier positions. It's a rather strong statement.

"Some people live dangerously, some live cautiously, some commit suicide, and some convince themselves that they'll live forever on some cloud."

But naturally, these are not the only choices.

"In the view of Sartre (one of those suicides), "life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal". This is also the view of many of the religious, but their solution is to deny that it's an illusion."

Whether this is the view of many of the religious I can't say. I consider myself religious, and I don't hold any of the views that you've ascribed to the religious, certainly not this one. Others may. Unless they've told you, of course, it's just your guess as to what they may believe.

Human cognitions are strongly influenced by emotion and mood, among many other things (these entities are all hard to define strictly, but all have been successfully studied with a scientific approach). Most people who commit suicide express ideas which reflect their emotional distress. Sometimes such expressions may be overtly irrational, at other times, they may be nondisprovable subjective statements, along the lines that "there is no hope". Whether it is ever rational to commit suicide is an argument for philosophers (let's put aside suicide of people with intractable physical suffering). From a scientific point of view, suicidal people can be treated. The frequent result is that they change their mood and emotional state, and express different subjective ideas, including the idea that suicide is not their choice after all. My guess would be that Sartre suffered from treatable mental illness at the time of his suicide, rather than arriving at the conclusion that he should kill himself from "pure reasoning".

One reason for torturing yourself by attending such a conference is the same reason I am currently reading Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Some day you will find yourself arguing with a Creationist, and he/she will say, "you're just parroting what you heard at Talk.Origins, or from the Evil Atheist Conspiracy". You can say to them truthfully, "No, I actually listened to Dr. X's pitiful POS arguments and they actually don't make sense."

There are those who judge books critical of evolution without actually reading them, evidently considering that to be needless toil. They "know" that evolution is true and explains everything, and therefore "know" that all critics have bad motives and worse education. Those who find that they need actually to read a book in order to fairly judge it will find Denton reasonable, extremely well-informed, clear, readable and thought-provoking. I highly recommend "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis."

BB -

I agree. It's extremely important for some pro-science people to keep up with creationism, in all its stripes.

Their goal is to bypass scientific critique and build a "following". The more rapidly and efficiently their stuff can be exposed, the better. Plenty of well-meaning, honest people buy into it because it "sounds right" in the absence of a critique. Shining the bright light of real science on it is an incredibly valuable thing to do.

a specific epoch of the Mesozoic suddenly experienced several local floods

— KR

Why do people persist in writing "no one" as "noone"? It's bizarre.

Comment #39207 Posted by SteveF on July 24, 2005 06:12 AM (e) (s) Let me get this straight; the flood, that global megacatastrophe, carver of canyons, raiser of mountains, was able to preserve a fragile egg. This flood was amazing - it was simultaneously powerful enough to re-shape the world and not destroy delicate objects.

Comment #39217 Posted by Bayesian Bouffant, FCD on July 24, 2005 09:37 AM (e) (s) Some day you will find yourself arguing with a Creationist, and he/she will say, "you're just parroting what you heard at Talk.Origins, or from the Evil Atheist Conspiracy". You can say to them truthfully, "No, I actually listened to Dr. X's pitiful POS arguments and they actually don't make sense."

I would say the best reason to read the ID Creationists is for amusement. For instance, for several months I asked "What are the ID Creationists going to do when the courts rule that ID is Creationism, and prohibited?" and at some point Dembski said "We'll change the name to Intelligent Evolution." or something like that.

Do you see why that's so funny? Because now they can't change the name to IE. They'd be on record saying IE was just ID under an assumed name.

Watching this Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight is hilarious.

Here's something else that's morbidly funny. For years now Paul Nelson has been writing his magnum opus, which aims to show that horizontal gene transfer ruins parts of evolutionary theory. But in the meantime, while he's been writing this manifesto, real scientists have started using horizontal gene transfer to understand evolution. There have been papers already.

In the south, we have a nice phrase for that sort of person. He's a day late, and a dollar short.

I've found TalkOrigins and this site extremely helpful in helping me slough off any remaining pro-Creationist/pro-ID baggage I've held onto over the years. You have my sympathy and admiration in putting up with an entire conference on views that you disagree with. As others have pointed out, 21st Century American Christian fundamentalism is not the exclusive theistic (or even Christian Theistic) worldview out there. I've lately been reading an Eastern Orthodox Christian Catechism (The Living God / tr. by Olga Dunlop) that has absolutely no problem with evolution. It deals with the Theological concepts and implications of the first chapters of Genesis but openly states they are not history (Just as Jesus' parables are not meant to be history). This is not to say that one won't find young earth Creationists and/or ID'ers in the Eastern Orthodox faith. There are more than a few. But the origins question is not a "settled issue" for the Orthodox as it is in some Protestant Fundamentalist denominations.

Personal thoughts on religion and theism (as more raw data for your anthropological researches):

It seems to me that virtually every human acts as though there is meaning in life and that there are objective principles of good and evil (even if some say they don't believe there is meaning or objective morality, even if everyone doesn't agree on all the particulars, and even if some people flaunt those principles openly or hypocritically). Some despair at the lack of meaning in life. (I've had those moments). But why despair over something that does not exist or has no direct or indirect connection to something that exists? My cats don't despair. Why do I? It seems to me that the despair still suggests that there is something real and objective out there. I wonder if it comes down to this: the theists believe that the ultimate source of meaning and morality is somehow sentient; the non-theists either believe that the source is non-sentient or that it doesn't matter. But both seem to act as though there is a genuine source. Maybe the line between theism and a-theism is finer than many are willing to admit.

Christian theists take things further: they believe that the sentient ultimate source of meaning, morality, and everything else, became human, lived, was executed by crucifixion in a particular time and place, resurrected from the dead several days later, and then bodily left this earth again some weeks after that.

If the death/resurrection of Jesus did actually happen as a historical event, then it has implications. An old earth and biological evolution does not change those implications. Strip off centuries of accumulated theological interpretations and Church splits and you're still left with a unique occurrence: a man verifiably dead (according to accounts) appeared alive some days later. For good or for ill, belief in that occurrence unleashed events that led to the radical religious transformation of the Roman Empire three Centuries later, and Western Civilization has never been the same since.

If fundamentalist Christians desire to defend their faith from secularism (and I believe modern Western secularism is still deeply rooted in a Christian worldview), maybe they should focus on the historical and scientific verifiabile evidences -- or lack thereof -- of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. If the death/resurrection did not happen, then all the proofs of a young earth and flood covered eggs are irrelevant (although it might be comfort to Orthodox Jews).

Here's another book that might help in your anthropological researches: The God experiment : can science prove the existence of God? / by Russell Stannard. Stannard is a physicist who also accepts evolution as fact. While I don't expect it to be convincing, the book may provide interesting insight in how a "typical scientist" may also be a Christian believer (not that there aren't uncompromised "typical scientists" who may also believe in Hinduism, Islam, or communism).

My best wishes as you suffer (as in "endure") the rest of this conference.

LOL, that is awesome! I may go to one next time for the comedy of it all.

As others have pointed out, 21st Century American Christian fundamentalism is not the exclusive theistic (or even Christian Theistic) worldview out there.

Why do people persist in writing "no one" as "noone"? It's bizarre.

You are shameless, Dr Rodenhouse!
I thought the mayhem (myahem) you mentioned would be in this third post.
Please hurry with the next installment.
I wait with baited breath.

Really, Bayesian? I see it all the time. It's higher up in this comment section, is what caused me to ask.

Actually, you need to do more than "get laid". That act of "getting laid" needs to produce viable offspring, and those viable offspring must be capable of surviving to sexual maturity and reproducing at at least the average rate of the rest of the population.

This isn't a matter of facts or logic here -- more specifically, not a matter of the physical data and the scientific framework used to explain and further discovery of those data. You seem to believe that it is;

after years of discussing this online with numerous Creationists, I've come to the conclusion that presenting facts and logic doesn't do the trick, but you seem to insist otherwise.

The likely Creationist response is simply to ignore them, much as they're doing now. Again, in the face of fear, facts and logic simply don't penetrate.

What we need is another Carl Sagan. We need someone with charisma and a deep understanding of science as a spokesperson. We need to connect with the average man on the street who was never really interested in science. And we need to do it in a way that does not threaten his religion.

Not a simple task. Not by a long shot.

the non-theists either believe that the source is non-sentient or that it doesn't matter. But both seem to act as though there is a genuine source.

Where in the world did you find a decent burrito in Lynchburg?

"No one way of resolving this is more rational than another." This would seem to be a change from earlier positions. It's a rather strong statement.

My guess would be that Sartre suffered from treatable mental illness at the time of his suicide, rather than arriving at the conclusion that he should kill himself from "pure reasoning".

My post was talking about how scientists should be out there getting their points across to the public at large (not to hard-core creationists), rather than spending their lives talking to each other and leaving the wider stage open for creationists to come in and redefine science for the public.

Colleen:  With what are you baiting your breath?  And baiting implies a trap; for whom (or what) are you waiting?

I will not hold my breath; turning blue to attempt to compel you to answer is not my style.

There's a belief some people have that scientists are discouraged from publicising science. When some scientist blogger--was it a physicist?--failed to get tenure recently, that was one of the first suggestions I heard about why. Me, I have merely an undergrad degree in physics, I don't know if it's true or not. Can some academics comment on that?

How odd. Yesterday I made a comment listing a handful of finds of Dinosaur eggs and nests from the Late Triassic to Late Cretaceous, and got an automatic message that my post was being checked as I was a first time poster. I've never had that message before when posting here.

-Schmitt.

from JonBuck: We need to connect with the average man on the street who was never really interested in science. And we need to do it in a way that does not threaten his religion

From the The Dallas Morning News: "My belief is, I don't know how God did it -- or in what time frame he did it -- I just know he did it," said Randy Dutton, a Tulsa accountant who lives in nearby Glenpool. Strolling with his wife, Shelby, and his two sons, ages 5 and 1, Mr. Dotton said he and his wife are Christians who do not buy evolution.

The genuine source of meaning in my life is my own mind, and the genuine source of good and evil is the evaluations I make.

Not at all. I'm simply saying that too many scientists don't know what creationists are about. This isn't a few biblical literalists sitting off in a corner demanding that we teach the Bible in science class, it's a well-organised, well-funded movement that scientists can't afford to ignore.

...most people don't care a rat's ass about science...

Really, Bayesian? I see it all the time. It's higher up in this comment section, is what caused me to ask.

Where in the world did you find a decent burrito in Lynchburg?

pointing out that it's a shortcut to failure in college and reduced career prospects

t.s. -

Yes, that was a bit careless of me about Sartre, to put it mildly. I don't know why my memory failed me.

At any rate, I would recommend that anyone about to commit suicide because of a sense of absurdity, or for any reason, consider therapy first. I certainly don't consider suicide "immoral", but it strikes me as a very good idea to avoid it (exempting the issue of intractable physical suffering or other rare circumstances). After all, the decision NOT to commit suicide can be easily reversed later, whereas the decision to do so often cannot be. There is ample tragic forensic evidence of second thoughts during the last moments of life for some successful suicides, and evidence from the testimony of "surprise survivors", such as those who survive a high jump due to a freak wind or whatnot, that last minute re-evaluations are not uncommon. Also, almost any suicide attempt carries a high risk of producing disastrous medical consequences, such as severe facial injuries, brain damage due to transient asphixiation, and so on, without producing actual death - a terrible result by any sane evaluation.

It's irrational to call IDers or others dim-wits, with possible exceptions in extenuating circumstances, for the following reasons...

First of all, "dim-wit" usually implies someone who is not merely wrong, but who finds academic achievement and abstract thought challenging. Unfortunately, many IDers and even YEC creationists are not dim-wits. Even the likes of "Dr Dino" exhibit a lot of wasted talent. Let alone Dembski. So it's not technically accurate. The specific person you used it on struck me as misguided but not necessarily dimwitted. You also used different but similar terms to describe regular posters Lenny Flank and Flint, who are anything but (and not creationist either).

Second of all, and far more importantly, calling someone an insulting name has predictable behavioral implications. It is very likely to make them feel angry and/or hurt, which will neary always cause them to reject and dislike your position, however logically compelling it may be. It may make some bystanders view them as ridiculous, but it may cause others to feel a sense of emotional support for them, which could actually blind the sympathetic bystander to the technical flaws of their position. If your goal in communicating with them is to produce these predictable results, it is rational to use this technique. If it is not, then this result will conflict with almost any other goal, such as convincing them, convincing third parties most effectively, etc.

Also, if you subscribe to an ethical system which discourages mistreatment of others, such as Secular Humanism, producing this result may even be at odds with your ethical system. In the sense that one chooses one's own ethical system for some reason, violating it may be deemed irrational - why choose it if you're going to violate it? Of course, I don't know if you consider yourself a secular humanist or whatever, so this may not apply.

Some creationists may actually be challenged by abstract thought, but even so, their arguments can be dealt with without drawing attention to their deficiencies with an insult. After all, we see people every day who have some sort of challenge or difficulty relative to others. This doesn't compel us to insult them for it, even when it would be "technically accurate" to do so.

Needless to say, firm language is often needed when dealing with creationists, who are often the sort to take considerate language as a sign of "weakness", and who typically intiate the insults themselves, often spontaneously (while paradoxically claiming to be "Christian"). But it's a question of degree. I don't suggest that "revenge" is justified, but I do think that to some degree they themselves set the tone that they receive.

And we may note that insults are irrational even from a creationist point of view. If creationists were sincere (which I often cynically doubt in many cases), they would truly believe that others who believed differently than they do were bound for damnation, but that God wishes to save souls. Logically, this would compel them to communicate effectively, and to make a special effort to reach those who do not already believe as they do. Yet harsh insults and exaggerated expressions of scorn work against this purpose. My subjective but not irrational interpretation of this is that they actually support a rather harsh political, social and economic vision for life in the United States, and see creationism/harsh fundamentalism as an arm of the program (as opposed to being motivated by a powerful belief in creationism, independently). This doesn't mean that they don't sometimes convince themselves.

Pointing out that creationist "science" isn't science won't make much of an impression: pointing out that it's a shortcut to failure in college and reduced career prospects will, at the least, draw attention enough for a message to be received.

At root, the evolution/creation "debate" is not a scientific one. Indeed, in a very real sense, science is utterly irrelevant to it. It is a POLITICAL fight. It will not be beaten with science or with science education. It will only be beaten the same way every OTHER political movement is beaten --- by out-organizing it. Scientists, alas, generally do a very poor job of that. By treating this as a SCIENCE dispute, you are simply playing straight into the hands of the fundies, assaulting their strong points and avoiding their weaknesses.

sigh - hit "post" too soon

...or they're going to end up being mistrusted or ignored by society at large while people turn into scientifically illiterate sheeple who follow their pastors and their creationist ministries because they don't know what science actually is and they don't realise the politics behind the propaganda.

It's irrational to call IDers or others dim-wits, with possible exceptions in extenuating circumstances, for the following reasons...

Rev Flank -

"At least not until it begins to cost them money"

Yep, in the end, it will be about money.

Back in 1999, when the creationists in Kansas (the original ones) simply tried to remove evolution from the curriculum, I said that some student should sue.

Some student should argue "I was denied a standard high school science education, simply because some other guy's (ostensible) religious beliefs were given more consideration than everyone else's. My lack of basic understanding of evolution could screw up my interviews for Harvard or Oxford, or put me at a disadvantage in my quest to become a biotech executive or orthopedic surgeon. It's straightforward discrimination. That other guy could have studied and understood the theory of evolution without believing it (and turned to his church or family for guidance through the dissonance, as a holocaust denier or flat earther who wished to graduate would have to do), or he could have chosen not to study evolution and taken his chances. It's part of a mainstream high school curriculum, and the onus is on the eccentrics to make their own peace with it. The policy is straightforward discrimination against all of us mainstream Protestants/Catholics/Buddhists/Hindus/moderate Muslims/Quetzalcoatl worshippers (he demands human sacrifice, but he has no problem with evolution)/Wiccans/you name it, and I'm suing!"

And I meant it.

Biology is the underpinning of medicine, pharmacology, and agriculture, to name a few things. This is what will get them in the end.

It would, of course, help immensely if all the Fortune 500 corporations and all of the respected colleges and universities would make the simple announcement that they will not accept anyone who has been given any less-than-honest science education (like creation "science").

t.s. -

"Thanks for providing your reasoning, but I don't find it compelling, largely because it omits a number of facts, such as the actual content of the page of the fellow I called dim-witted,"

Irrelevant to almost all of what I said. Partially applicable to my point about accuracy. However, in my equally valid opinion, the individual was misguided but not lacking in academic ability - not a so-called dimwit. Empirical evidence supports my position.

"the actual nature of debate with such folks, the actual consequences of calling that fellow dim-witted, and so on; it's all a bit of just-so story detached from reality."

No, my points about how you can expect people to respond to insults could easily be tested empirically, if anyone needed to do so, and is obviously grounded in reality.

"And yes I'm a secular humanist, but no, I don't think that calling someone dim-witted is unethical."

Well, I'll admit it's a relatively mild insult under many circumstances, but I think many secular humanists would disagree with you. I think that needlessly causing emotional pain to others is unethical.

"And I certainly don't believe that we choose our own ethical system. I think it was Schopenhauer who noted that we can do what we want but we cannot want what we want. Einstein commented on how, when he came across this, it lifted a great burden from him."

You seem to be a well-read and in some ways highly intelligent person (albeit not necessarily well-read in biology, the actual subject of this page, ostensibly), and in the context of finding something to say to obsessively contradict whoever you happen to be arguing with, you raise a lot of good points. Certainly, it was an oversimplification to say that we "choose" our own ethical system, although it's true on some level. Shopenhauer's statement, while sounding simple, is profoundly insightful.

Man, you are seriously arguing that it's rational to run around calling other people "clowns" and "dimwits" and whatever the other one was. Please.

steve,

Re "Why do people persist in writing "no one" as "noone"? It's bizarre."

I don't know. Perhaps for the same reason that some write "a lot" as "alot", but I don't understand that either.

Re "And before some pedant says AH! That's an argument from authority!"

Well, when somebody says that, point out that the logical fallacy to which they're referring is actually "argument from inappropriate authority". That points been made on this blog before.

Henry

Man, you are seriously arguing that it's rational to run around calling other people "clowns" and "dimwits" and whatever the other one was. Please.

in the context of finding something to say to obsessively contradict whoever you happen to be arguing with, you raise a lot of good points

t.s. -

"It was "nutcase". It was rational to say so in the sense that it was true"

So it's always rational to say something insulting about someone, if it's true?

I'm fairly sure it wasn't true, as well. But then again, I suppose it depends on the definition of the derogatory slang term "nutcase".

"None of my goals has been endangered by using any of those terms relative to not using them; that's what rationality amounts to"

Really? What are your goals (in the context of posting)? Also, is this really a good definition of rationality?

"I haven't made any point of claiming that such usage is rational or irrational -- it's more along the lines of Bartleby, a matter of preference."

So you just prefer to insult people. As if anyone had any doubts of that. There are actually insulting terms for that, too - insults for insulters, would you believe it? But I won't lower the tone of discussion by flinging them about. Nevertheless, unless your only goal is to produce the very predictable results of insulting, giving in to this preference may be construed as irrational.

"Ah, yes, making good points is obsessive contradiction."

No, that's not what obsessive contradiction is. Obsessive contradiction is, well, obsessive contradiction.

"As Flint said (misdirected at me)..."

No, I'm fairly sure Flint directed that at you on purpose.

But I won't lower the tone of discussion by flinging them about.

"As Flint said (misdirected at me)..." No, I'm fairly sure Flint directed that at you on purpose.

"At least not until it begins to cost them money" Yep, in the end, it will be about money.

Re "Why do people persist in writing "no one" as "noone"? It's bizarre." I don't know. Perhaps for the same reason that some write "a lot" as "alot", but I don't understand that either.

t.s. -

I'll just clear this up very briefly.

"Harold, you started low with your ad hominem rant during our original discussion about religion; when I noted that it was ad hominem, you accused me of turning it around, even though your rant was right there in black and yellow, and you said that people like me will even always use those words: "ad hominem"."

Ad hominem has a very specific meaning. It means attempting to negate another person's argument by using an irrelevant personal attack. "The theory of relativity is wrong BECAUSE Einstein is a clown". It's not the same thing as "The theory of relativity is wrong AND Einstein is a clown". The latter is obnoxious, perhaps, but not an ad hominem attack. I've never suggested that you make ad hominem attacks, for example, but merely that you insult people.

Insult is not the same thing as strong but justified criticism, either, although in that case, the boundaries may be blurred.

Nevertheless, a common response to a critical post, on the internet, is to parse it for the mildest critical words and declare it to be "ad hominem", rather than addressing its substance.

"And then you said I would follow you around launching insults at you. But, that never happened; rather, it is you who are obsessed with me and my word usage."

That stopped shortly after I made the prediction, yes. Your posting behavior has modified in general, for whatever reason.

I was genuinely curious why you thought it rational to use insult terms. Insult terms are usually a sign of emotional excitement, intended to provoke emotional distress, and their use detracts from rational goals. You evaded the question and demanded that I provide an explanation as to why it is irrational to use insults, which I eventually broke down and did. To be honest, it just seemed so obvious...

"Notably, you don't have anything to say about Lenny, because he's your ally; your whole process is steeped in hypocrisy."

I certainly don't agree that Lenny insults people the way you did. There's a world of difference between tough persistence with relevant critical questions about biology and ID, and casual insults to people over philosophical differences. Lenny is my "ally" in the sense that we both oppose creationist, although so are you, technically. I "agree" with Lenny's religious beliefs, too, by coincidence, but that isn't relevant, since neither of is trying to force our religion onto the other or into public schools, nor arguing that science must be wrong because of our religion (nor vice versa).

At any rate, enough is enough.

I have a question for Jason. See if I am getting this right. If a child should ask how life as we know it today came to exist, today's public school teacher, according to the evolutionary teaching, should answer something like this:

Billions of years ago a cataclysmic event occurred whereby matter came into existence and billions of years later a particle of microscopic matter became "living" or alive and this was our first life on planet earth. This one celled 'being' then reproduced asexually. The offspring took three forms, one form was like the parent and this form remains with us today. One form became animal and one form became plant, hence two great kingdoms emerge. As these one celled animals and plants began to also reproduce, they either remained the same or began to mutate or specialize. This process of mutation and specialization is what we call evolution when it involves the species that has formed improving and becoming a new class, phylum, or kind. Many plants and animals evolved. Some cease to evolve at certain or different stages while others continue on in this evolutionary process. This accounts for all the species and races that we have today. It explains how some species thrive and become superior while others stop evolving at an inferior stage. For example, it explains how some primates walk upright and others do not. Some even become extinct. This process explains the different races of people on earth and the differences one finds in the races.

Could you answer if this is a satisfactory explanation and if not, why not? Also, could you answer this question: Is life still orignating spontaneously, or has this event ceased and why? If evolution is true, how can we assert that all people are equal? If evolution is true, from whence comes love, compassion, charity, etc. in humans when all other life is void of these characteristics? If we are going to teach this to children, we need to have the answers, right?

I have a question for Jason. See if I am getting this right. If a child should ask how life as we know it today came to exist, today's public school teacher, according to the evolutionary teaching, should answer something like this:

— White Stone

If evolution is true, how can we assert that all people are equal?

If evolution is true, from whence comes love, compassion, charity, etc. in humans when all other life is void of these characteristics?

White Stone

Your post implies to me that evolution is anti-religion. It isn't. It has nothing to say about how life on Earth got started, but attempts to explain what happened next by looking at all the clues that are available.

Fundamentalists, a small section of Christians, insist on the literal truth of the bible, which unfortunaly brings them into conflict with reality.

Evolution has nothing to say, either, about a moral code. Many people who accept ideas such as evolution manage to live a spiritually fulfilled life.

This one celled 'being' then reproduced asexually. The offspring took three forms, one form was like the parent and this form remains with us today. One form became animal and one form became plant, hence two great kingdoms emerge.

— White Stone

As advocates of science we will never defeat our opponents until we stop playing the defensive and start going on the offensive. Instead of being so reactive every time creationist absurdities rear their ugly heads, we should be seeking out school boards, locales and even biology classrooms that don't adequately include evolution (and other important cornerstones of sound science) in their curricula and actively demand its inclusion.
I, for one, would be quite upset to find out any local public school wasn't actively teaching evolution in its biology classes. Even private schools that oppose the teaching of the subject should, in the very least, be publicly exposed for the practice.

Also, as far as teaching the scientific method goes, we should actively advocate that the importance of peer review be included as the final step of the scientific method; I believe the lack of education on this point explains much of the lack of ability of the general public to discern the difference between solid science and the musings of fringe crackpots.

We would not need to spend so much time exterminating infestations if we sanitized their potential breeding grounds.

The offspring took three forms, one form was like the parent and this form remains with us today. One form became animal and one form became plant, hence two great kingdoms emerge. ... Could you answer if this is a satisfactory explanation and if not, why not? Also, could you answer this question: Is life still orignating spontaneously, or has this event ceased and why? If evolution is true, how can we assert that all people are equal? If evolution is true, from whence comes love, compassion, charity, etc. in humans when all other life is void of these characteristics? If we are going to teach this to children, we need to have the answers, right?

— White Stone

White Stone's general model doesn't strike me as so much distorted by creationist dogma, as rather a fairly well-presented picture of what evolution means to the general population. And this makes a depressing kind of sense: many if not most public schools kind of gloss over or ignore evolution. It's often in the last chapter in the book, which they never reach during the school year. Nor do either schoolteachers or their administrators wish to court controversy and headaches by teaching it. Finally, most high school biology teachers themselves have never been trained properly in evolution (they often double as the gym teacher). Somewhere I read that about a third of high school science teachers themselves are creationists.

So if White Stone didn't learn about it in school, where DID s/he get those ideas? Surely not from reading the literature or even from reading popularized accounts from Gould or Dawkins. Few people expend that effort. Perhaps from osmosis, general exposure to the idea as implied by journalists. Perhaps from discussions in church groups or with others no better informed. These sources tend to regard evolution generally as "where did we come from?" which lumps in any related past event, including the big bang, abiogenesis, and anything else.

Notice that White Stone's hypothetical child's question isn't "how does evolution work" (who cares?) but rather "how life as we know it today came to exist." And common descent implies that "life as we know it" describes the very first form capable of evolving. Everything since then is just mechanical details. But how life as we know it came to exist, I think, is best interpreted as how did the earliest common ancestor come to exist. And THAT question is critical, because this is clearly where God stuck in his oar.

And this is why the focus on public education is so important. White Stone's presentation includes one false assumption after another. Sometimes it's hard to identify the assumption, the statement is so misguided. But this is what we would expect when evolutionary ideas must be attached to a hopelessly inappropriate framework. And as children mature, unlearning an incorrect framework becomes increasingly difficult.

With apologies to Ernst Mayr, I think White Stone's exposition is an excellent description of the general public conception of What Evolution Is.

Whoever was complaining that there aren't enough creationists around here anymore, enjoy White Stone. Me, I could live without it.

White Stone -

I appreciate what you've done. You've been up front about YOUR understanding of the theory of evolution, and some other scientific and moral issues. This allows misconceptions to be cleared up and questions to be answered.

"Billions of years ago a cataclysmic event occurred whereby matter came into existence and billions of years later a particle of microscopic matter became "living" or alive and this was our first life on planet earth."

No. This is too oversimplified. There is a difference between summarizing something, versus deliberately presenting it in a manner so crude as to make it appear nonsensical. This isn't a fair summary of big bang cosmology or abiogenesis.

Furthermore, the theory of evolution, properly speaking, deals with the history of cellular life (and post-cellular life (?) such as viruses) on earth. I certainly believe that abiogenesis (the emergence of cellular life from biochemical precursor forms) occurred, an opinion which is irrelevant to my religious beliefs. Most researchers in abiogenesis consider their work to be compatible with and an extension of the theory of evolution. I agree with them. But strictly speaking, the theory of evolution does not yet incorporate abiogenesis.

"This one celled 'being' then reproduced asexually. The offspring took three forms, one form was like the parent and this form remains with us today. One form became animal and one form became plant, hence two great kingdoms emerge."

Absolutely not. Prokaryotes, the "simplest" cells today, are incredibly diverse and highly evolved. The emergence of eukaryote status and multicellularity were major evolutionary events, the latter may have happened more than once. The divergence of plants from animals (if this is indeed what happened) is a complex topic, as are all of these, for that matter.

"As these one celled animals and plants began to also reproduce, they either remained the same or began to mutate or specialize. This process of mutation and specialization is what we call evolution when it involves the species that has formed improving and becoming a new class, phylum, or kind."

Absolutely not. Whenever there is reproduction, there is evolution. Evolution is sometimes described as being driven by "mutation and natural selection". It would be better to speak of "sources of genetic diversity and natural selection" perhaps, and we shouldn't overlook the role of the developmental environment, although that may fit under natural selection, broadly defined. Differentiation and specialization are RESULTS of evolution. Evolution may lead to long term morphologic stasis in a lineage, but reproducing organisms are always evolving.

"Many plants and animals evolved. Some cease to evolve at certain or different stages while others continue on in this evolutionary process."

No, see above.

"This accounts for all the species and races that we have today. It explains how some species thrive and become superior while others stop evolving at an inferior stage."

Here you reveal some common, major misunderstandings of evolution. 1) As I said above, all life evolves constantly. 2) The idea that one form of life is "superior" or "inferior" to another is a value judgment. It is completely unrelated to the theory of evolution, except in the very indirect way that the evolution of the human brain underlies human value judgments.

"For example, it explains how some primates walk upright and others do not. Some even become extinct. This process explains the different races of people on earth and the differences one finds in the races."

The human species is "genetically small", because of our rapid population increase over a short period of time. Race is a social construct, differing in nonscientific ways across societies, based on a few aspects of physical appearance, which sometimes correlates with a limited number of non-trivial biological factors like genetic diseases, and correlates strongly with social roles in some societies (but not at all in others). In the US, people with superficial features suggestive of Asian or African descent are ascribed to that "race" socially, even if most of their alleles are recently from Europe, rendering the concept virtually meaningless. People are even ascribed a "race" according to the language they speak, as when European actor Antonio Banderas is refered to as "hispanic" (itself a biologically meaningless category, but often considered a "race" in the US). "Race" is thus of great interest to sociology, potentially important in day to day science-based activities like clinical medicine and law enforcement in some ways, but relatively meaningless in biology.

"Could you answer if this is a satisfactory explanation and if not, why not?"

It's not. Clearly, if you're interested, you need to learn more.

"Also, could you answer this question: Is life still orignating spontaneously, or has this event ceased and why?"

There is no evidence to suggest that life is originating sponaneously at present, one obvious reason why being the vastly different conditions at present than in the distant past. Also, note the difference between "abiogenesis" - the scientific study of how cellular life may have originated - and "spontaneous generation" - a superstitious view that complex modern organisms like mice or flies could appear magically out of nothing, famously discredited by Louis Pasteur.

"If evolution is true, how can we assert that all people are equal?"

For the same reasons we would assert this if evolution were not true. Moral reasons unrelated to the physical details of how people originate. It is patently clear that modern scientific societies are far more protective of equality and human rights than pre-scientific societies. Therefore, it would be more logical (albeit still mistaken) to argue that the theory of evolution ENHANCES our appreciation of human equality.

"If evolution is true, from whence comes love, compassion, charity, etc. in humans when all other life is void of these characteristics?"

First of all, other animals are not necessarily void of these characteristics. Second of all, even if they were, humans are relatively unique in many ways (we are a seperate species after all). This is not evidence agains the fact that we evolved.

"If we are going to teach this to children, we need to have the answers, right?"

Not sure what you mean, but my likely answer is NO. The theory of evolution explains the diversity of cellular and post-cellular life on earth. It is a powerful and important theory, and critical to medicine, agriculture, biotechnology, pharmacology, and other applied biomedical fields. We should teach it. An obsessive focus on how it may relate to social and ethical values is unwarranted except at the graduate level in fields like anthropology, psychology, and perhaps some branches of biology. These things are not absolutely unrelated to evolution, of course, but they are not the main point of it, either.

As advocates of science we will never defeat our opponents until we stop playing the defensive and start going on the offensive. Instead of being so reactive every time creationist absurdities rear their ugly heads, we should be seeking out school boards, locales and even biology classrooms that don't adequately include evolution (and other important cornerstones of sound science) in their curricula and actively demand its inclusion.

The only 'refutation' Jason makes is linking to Talk.Origins, the savior of cut-and-paste laymen.

pointing out that it's a shortcut to failure in college and reduced career prospects... ... will cause them to campaign harder for ignorance to be promoted and tolerated in colleges and jobs too so that their precious little ignoramuses won't be discriminated against by the evil educated elite who think people should have to meet certain minimum levels of competence to pass exams.

Why do people persist in writing "no one" as "noone"? It's bizarre.

Harold,

Brilliant. Bravo.

One news article talking about teaching evolution in school quoted someone as saying, essentially (I don't have the exact quote, but the thrust was memorable), "I don't know anything about evolution and I don't have an opinion about teaching it, but I do know that I don't want the school to do anything that will reduce my daughter's chances of going to heaven."

The point was clear. For the Silent Majority, evolution may or may not be real, but God and Heaven are emphatically real. And this is also why White Stone automatically associated evolution with our moral health. Most of science might be dry, boring, and irrelevant to most people, but evolution in their minds isn't science, it's the theology of amorality, and a threat. Maybe we need to reassure people that evolution is just boring technical biology, don't worry, you're still going to heaven.

Somewhat OT: (But White Stone's little creationist rendering of evolution fer kids brought it to mind.)
I was at the San Francisco Zoo this last weekend with my wife and our 3-year old son.
The two of them went to go get a good look at the several lowland gorillas they have there (I, myself, cannot look them in the eyes and continue to have a good time at the zoo). Anyhoo...

My wife said something to our son to the effect that the gorillas were "our cousins," and a man jerked his head to give her a hard stare, looked down at our boy with a sad shake of his head, turned his back pointedly, and walked away.

You want to be able to shrug, and say, well, to each their own, but clearly that's not what's going through his mind, is it?

Evolution really scares people, folks.

you're positing a likely reaction of the leaders of the creationist movement

— Pierce R. Butler

From Ed Darrell in Comment #39252:
"Where in the world did you find a decent burrito in Lynchburg?"

Ed,
I can't speak to Lynchburg, but if you are ever in North Carolina try here.
There's none better.
Paul

> I'll just clear this up very briefly.

Patent intellectual dishonesty doesn't clearf anything up.

> At any rate, enough is enough.

Oh, you think so? But I don't doubt you'll resume your obsession soon enough.

Harold, Brilliant. Bravo.

From White Stone in Comment #39363:
"If evolution is true, from whence comes love, compassion, charity, etc. in humans when all other life is void of these characteristics?"

Would it be helpful to remember, from several years ago, when a child fell into the gorilla pen at a major zoo. One of the females (elder or younger I can't remember, though it seems important, I will guess she was an older, childless female) defended the child from aggressive males and tried to take care of the child until zoo employees removed the child from the pen. The qualities you mention are characteristic of higher brain functions but humans don't have a monopoly on those higher brain functions and they exist in a broad spectrum across the animal kingdom.

Sincerely,
Paul

Prokaryotes, the "simplest" cells today, are incredibly diverse and highly evolved. The emergence of eukaryote status and multicellularity were major evolutionary events, the latter may have happened more than once. The divergence of plants from animals (if this is indeed what happened) is a complex topic, as are all of these, for that matter.

A quick google search yielded various takes.

http://www.txbc.org/1996Journals/September%201996/Sept96BeyondAnimal.htm
http://forums.cpfc.org/showthread/t-111163.html
http://www.scienceforums.com/archive/index.php/t-2214.html
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/danten2.html

Paul

And that last one seems to take issue with the conclusion. Well, happy dickering.
Paul

From white stone in Comment #39426:

"Actually, I did some of what I set out to do. To one of you, I made... To another, I made... To another, I made... "

Actually, all you accomplished was to demonstrate how hopelessly fatuous it is to try to encapsulate an explanation about life, the universe, and everything into a measley two hundred words or less (unless your real name is Deep Thought, in which case, 42 will do).

This is why it is so important that science education in school not be watered down, but rather expanded wherever possible to the greatest extant possible. Science simply can't be learned in sound bites.

and more from stone:
"To some, you acknowledged that you do not know what happened originally, because evolution is concerned with life after it's origin and not with it's origin. My hope is that those of you who have so little tolerance will begin to realize your own intolerance. I hope that your lack of solid answers will be evident to you and instead of having the "we have all the answers" attitude, you will be able to say that there is MUCH we do not know."

I haven't read, or read of, a single scientist who ever was so arrogant as to claim that they knew everything. The only people I have ever seen make a similar claim were religionists of a christian stripe who said that the bible has the answer to everything. As has been pointed out in the last three or four days by Jason, that is true arrogance.
You may be polite but you are obviously not sincere.

Whatever you say, buddy.
I didn't so much "want to be heard" as answering your (supposedly innocent) concerns. You sound like a perfectly "intolerant" creationist to me.
I posted an anecdote of my recent experience, brought to mind by your post, that I thought might be of momentary interest to others here.

But I will answer one point in your follow-up diatribe. I think that what you mistake for a "'we have all the answers' attitude" is actually a level of comfort with the incomplete and necessarily provisional answers that are all we can expect science to provide. We (humanity) don't have all the answers. And accepting that actually relieves some of us of needing to believe all this stuff you're convinced we believe.
Naturally this is infuriating to people who cannot imagine existence without utter confidence in a belief system and who further cannot deal with the fact that science is not just a rival belief system, amenable to apologetics and argument.
Go lie to your kids all you want. I'm going to tell mine what we know, and how, as well as what we don't, and how he might go about finding out, if he were so inclined.

a particle of microscopic matter became "living" or alive and this was our first life on planet earth. This one celled 'being' then reproduced asexually.

If evolution is true, how can we assert that all people are equal?

If evolution is true, from whence comes love, compassion, charity, etc. in humans when all other life is void of these characteristics?

This summary had a bit more detail than Paul's links (IMHO). His memory of the incident was generally accurate, though apparently the female gorilla had an infant of her own at the time (which makes sense) and the threat posed by the other gorillas was apparently felt to emanate mostly just from curiousity. The mother gorilla's quick decision to take the human child to the exhibit entryway was an interesting one...

"At Brookfield Zoo on the afternoon of August 16, 1996, visitors crowded around the popular Western Lowland Gorilla exhibit watched in horror as an unattended, three-year-old child climbed over a protective barrier and tumbled 20 feet to the bottom of the gorillas' exhibit.
"Lying unconscious, the child was pick up by a female gorilla named Binti Jua, who also cradled her own infant, Koola. Videotape and photographs capturing the accident show Binti Jua shielding the boy from the other curious gorillas in the enclosure, then gently carrying him to the exhibit doorway where a rescue crew waited."

Because you see evolutionary processes at work within species, you believe that it is responsible for all species.

This has not been proven.

the "we have all the answers" attitude

I do not agree with Harold's views, but he certainly is entitled to them.

— White Stone

Comment #39422 Posted by Paul Flocken on July 25, 2005 04:23 PM (e) (s) Ed, I can't speak to Lynchburg, but if you are ever in North Carolina try here. There's none better. Paul

I have a question for Jason. See if I am getting this right. If a child should ask how life as we know it today came to exist, today's public school teacher, according to the evolutionary teaching, should answer something like this:

Also, could you answer this question: Is life still orignating spontaneously, or has this event ceased and why? If evolution is true, how can we assert that all people are equal? If evolution is true, from whence comes love, compassion, charity, etc. in humans when all other life is void of these characteristics?

As advocates of science we will never defeat our opponents until we stop playing the defensive and start going on the offensive. Instead of being so reactive every time creationist absurdities rear their ugly heads, we should be seeking out school boards, locales and even biology classrooms that don't adequately include evolution (and other important cornerstones of sound science) in their curricula and actively demand its inclusion.

The only 'refutation' Jason makes is linking to Talk.Origins, the savior of cut-and-paste laymen.

And if White Stone is a creationist, which isn't clear to me, s/he is Katarina's answer to "where are the polite creationists" from another thread.

Comment #39413 Posted by Moses on July 25, 2005 02:38 PM (e) (s) Steve 39225 Why do people persist in writing "no one" as "noone"? It's bizarre. Perhaps because "no one" and "nobody" are synonyms and one is two words, while the other is one word and this creates some type of cognitive dissonance?

I hope that your lack of solid answers will be evident to you and instead of having the "we have all the answers" attitude

Is misspelling the phrase "Dumbed down" ironic? Or just funny?

My hope is that those of you who have so little tolerance will begin to realize your own intolerance. I hope that your lack of solid answers will be evident to you and instead of having the "we have all the answers" attitude, you will be able to say that there is MUCH we do not know.

I really do not think that you see or hear yourselves as others see and hear you. You seem to spend way too much time fighting against those with whom you disagree, ie. - those who believe in a Creator and/or an Intelligent Designer.

Some of you believe in biogenesis, the supposed spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter and you believe it so strongly that you want it taught in public schools.

Because you see evolutionary processes at work within species, you believe that it is responsible for all species. This has not been proven.

I hope that your lack of solid answers will be evident to you and instead of having the "we have all the answers" attitude, you will be able to say that there is MUCH we do not know.

I really do not think that you see or hear yourselves as others see and hear you. You seem to spend way too much time fighting against those with whom you disagree, ie. - those who believe in a Creator and/or an Intelligent Designer.

Is misspelling the phrase "Dumbed down" ironic?

— steve

more crapola from stone's Comment #39426:

"Some of you believe in biogenesis, the supposed spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter and you believe it so strongly that you want it taught in public schools."

You left out a "A"-as in- Abiogenesis.

Anyway. We don't believe in abiogenesis. We accept it as overwhelmingly probable based on the evidence uncovered through the research (lab and field) done by scientists across the last 50 years. It's details are incomplete and will no doubt change, but it is the best explanation we have. Science is accepted, religion is believed. One is justified, the other is not. If you want to take this on then argue with ts. He needs a good target(even if he doesn't need the practice, his aim is quite sharp). But if the science changes we will accept that. Could you change your belief if your religion changed?

Additionally, we don't want to teach abiogenesis as a factoid. Again, science can't be taught as 'soundbites' and rote regurgitating conclusions is not 'learning'. Science is best taught in terms of the wonder scientists feel, the questions they ask, the research they do, the methods they use, the conclusions they reach, the back-and-forth debate they engage in over their conclusions, the new research and new methods suggested by the debate, etc., etc. It is as much history as facts; a helical(credit to S Mgr), climbing progress. As a non-science teacher this is the best I can write. Someone else could no doubt write better.
Sincerely,
Paul

Well, SEF, C.J. O'Brien, Flint, Moses, Pierce R. Butler, Rob, Alan, Bayesian Bouffant, Jim Wynne, want to be heard, but only Harold has anything with substance to say...

I did some of what I set out to do.

And teaching science this way may actually get children more excited about joining that effort and adding to that progress, but this is just my assertian.

From Steviepinhead in Comment #39437:

"This summary had a bit more detail than Paul's links (IMHO). His memory of the incident was generally accurate,"

Thankyou stevie. I really should do the google thing before I post. I thought the female was elderly, had had children but was now past childbearing age. In my defense, at the time this happened I was getting off a carrier and preoccupied with outprocessing from the Navy, not paying much attention to the outside world...

Paul

SEF: ... I was basing my speculation on the all too real behaviour of parents (and leaders pandering to parents as well as pursuing their own machinations) in the UK about education in general. ...

From steve in Comment #39442:

"The best burrito in North Carolina is sold..."

WELL(stamps foot), steve is a big, fat, parochial liar.

You really should get out of Raleigh more often. However, since you are a newly minted PhysicsBS let me pull a Roy Williams and offer you a graduation present. Next time you are in Wilmington any burrito you want is on me. Be ready to eat your words along with your burrito! I will have a printed copy of your post from above.
Paul

The mother gorilla episode that Paul remembered makes a nice bookend to C.J. O'Brien's account of the man--who on some level must have been fascinated by the gorillas, 'cause there he was voyeurizing them--but who couldn't stand hearing these objects of his fascination described as our "cousins."

One imagines teleporting the poor guy to the very moment of the mother gorilla's feat--from one zoo enclosure to the other--a moment after his disgusted headshake, the moment before the mother gorilla's rescue.

Would a new thought have managed to penetrate?

Hahaha okay Paul. And if you ever make it to Raleigh, you will eat your words, along with a fine chorizo or barbacoa burrito at aforementioned taco stand.

BTW, i know it's off-topic, but PT once again has a broken bathroom wall, so I can't post it there:

Is it true that in ch 5 of NFL, Dembski admits that Behe's IC is all busted? Considering how often creationists around here demand a refutation of IC--for instance, I believe we had one such event just last week--it would be cute to point to the big shot of ID saying so.

There's a hell of a lot of delicious authentic mexican food around here, and ethnic food in general. I know I did a double take when I first noticed the Ethiopian restaurant on Avent Ferry.

your critique is much too similar

Actually, I did some of what I set out to do. To one of you, I made your theory sound ridiculous. To another, I made your theory sound anti-Christian. To another, I made the theory very much over simplified, but possible. To some, you acknowledged that you do not know what happened originally, because evolution is concerned with life after it's origin and not with it's origin. My hope is that those of you who have so little tolerance will begin to realize your own intolerance. I hope that your lack of solid answers will be evident to you and instead of having the "we have all the answers" attitude, you will be able to say that there is MUCH we do not know. I really do not think that you see or hear yourselves as others see and hear you. You seem to spend way too much time fighting against those with whom you disagree, ie. - those who believe in a Creator and/or an Intelligent Designer. Some of you believe in biogenesis, the supposed spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter and you believe it so strongly that you want it taught in public schools. Because you see evolutionary processes at work within species, you believe that it is responsible for all species. This has not been proven.

— White Stone